


Exit Wounds

by incogneat_oh



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: ...of a villain though so, Gen, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Murder, batfamily, fake identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 03:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12673581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incogneat_oh/pseuds/incogneat_oh
Summary: Did you hear this one? A vigilante walks into a warehouse and kills the joker.





	1. Chapter 1

**–**

The warehouse is dark and still. Quiet, too, with the exception of the vintage gramophone playing scratchy jazz in the back corner. 

The Joker, clown prince himself, sits sprawled on a throne. It’s not a real throne, of course, but a prop he’d liberated from a department store display. Then he’d set it in the back of this dusty, industrial warehouse. His _kingdom_. 

It’s been a quiet week. Minimal mischief, very little scheming. He’s laying low, because he’s had enough of Arkham for a lifetime. He misses Batman, though. No one’s scowled at him in a while. He could laugh just thinking about it. (So he does.)

Harley’s off doing who-cares-what – or is she still in lockup? it’s so hard to keep track – and so tonight it’s just him and a joke book his last shrink had given him, with a henchman on each of the doors. (He’s not an  _idiot_.)

_Why would you invite a mushroom to a party?_

He can feel the laugh bubbling up already, even before he turns the page. Before the punchline. 

_Because it’s a fungi!_

And he’s still laughing, which is why it takes a minute to notice… a distinctive  _absence_ of sound.

“Hel- _lo_ , Batsy,” he sing-songs, tossing the book down. Wary, eyes sharp and roving the seemingly empty warehouse. “I haven’t done anything bad today!”

“Guess again.”

Someone else would have jumped. The Joker just laughs. It’s  _hysterical_.

“Little baby Batsy! Well, this  _is_ a surprise! To what do I owe the pleasure, Boy Has-Been?” His gloved hand is fumbling at his waistcoat, for–

“Looking for your panic button?” Red Robin says, flat, and really, he could rival the Batman for most-fun-by-way-of-being-least-funny. “I wouldn’t bother. Your henchmen are drooling on the pavement outside. They’re going to be out for hours.”

His smile flags. “Aren’t you a clever one.”

“So I’m told,” the vigilante says. He’s standing close, now, but not close enough to be in range for anything. His posture is… open, face expressionless under the cowl. He’s definitely not as fun as Batman. 

“Does  _dear papa_  know you’re out past your bedtime?”

“He doesn’t know either one of us is here,” the boy answers calmly. He’s not holding a weapon, but then,  _technically_ , neither is the Joker. “I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for him to show, Joker.”

The Joker laughs. It comes naturally. “What a shame,” he says. “I’ll just have to play with  _you_ , little bird.” And he moves, sudden–

And gets tasered. 

He hits the ground, still twitching, laughing through the pain and spasms, and Red Robin moves closer. 

“I modified my suit,” he explains. Politely, showing a tiny button-release in one of his gloves. “I had to be sure you couldn’t do any damage when I kill you.”

He’s cackling. He can’t move and it  _hurts_  but it’s too funny, and if he keeps it up he might crack a rib. Robin threats, he thinks, might be even better than Batman threats. 

The first one’s wanted to kill him before, but never makes it that far. The second– it was the second, right? with the crowbar swinging and the solid heat and the bomb?– well  _he_  came back much more fun than before. That one wants to kill him, too, even if he hasn’t managed it yet. And the latest one, the small angry one that is scowl-y and tiny and oh-so-much-fun, is. Well. He wants to kill  _everyone_. 

Red Robin, the third one, the kicked-out-of-the-nest one, the one that never even works with Batsy any more, has never threatened him like the others. It’ll be nice to finally add him to the list.

Breathless with laughter and muscle-spasmed lungs, the Joker chokes out, “That sounds like my kind of fun!”

Red Robin stalks closer. He moves like a predator, and there’s a gun in his hand, glinting in the half-light. “Do you think so, Joker?”

It’s getting slightly less funny. He’s drooling a little, and he still can’t move. His smile slips. Drops. And he  _hates_ that.

The vigilante could step on him, from here. If he wanted to. He says, gun hanging heavy and weighty and all-consuming in his black-gloved grip, “I could make this harder on you. Go for a few shots in painful places. But that’s not what this is about.”

“So,” the Joker pants, still breathless, “This isn’t personal?  _Timothy_?”

Red Robin doesn’t stop, or freeze, or cringe, for even a second. He says, unimpressed, “What, so I’m supposed to be surprised? You’re a lot of things, but you aren’t  _stupid_. Frankly, I’d be disappointed if you  _hadn’t_ figured us out by now.”

He reaches up one handed– left, the right is still steady on the gun– and tugs off the cowl. He shakes out his too-long hair, face flat and expressionless. He walks until he’s close enough to crouch beside the Joker. And he says, “I’m going to kill you, and there will be nothing funny about it.”

A giggle claws its way out of his throat, but the expression on the little bird’s face stays the same. His eyes are blue, faintly flecked with a lighter colour, and the boy’s gaze is unwavering.

“This isn’t revenge. It’s just… logical. I am going to remove you from my life, and from the lives of my family.”

The Joker gives a bark of laughter. “Like they’ll still be your family when you succumb to this – your  _darkest urge_ , when you give in and pull that trigger! We all  _know_ daddy dearest doesn’t stand for murder, even me! Isn’t that right Timmy-boy?”

Calmly, “Do you think I don’t know that?” His dark hair is sweat-curled and his suit smells like cleaning products. Like a hospital. Batman always smells like kevlar and pollution and smoke. This one smells like soap. “Do you honestly think I haven’t weighed this up? Every possible outcome, every way this could end? Come on, Joker, you  _know_ I’m the smart one. You’ve said it yourself. I’ve done nothing  _but_ plan this for months. And tonight’s the night.”

And there’s something settling beneath the seized-lungs pain in the Joker’s chest, something heavier and deeper than the laughter. He giggles and it’s too high pitched, sounds… strained. “You’re going to give Batsy a breakdown.”

Red Robi –  _Tim_ just shrugs. “He’ll get over it. He has other kids.”

His smile, loose and stretched and always painful, shifts into something like a snarl. Something vicious and sharp, and he says, “He’ll never forgive you.”

“I know.” The boy shifts back on his heels, says uncomfortably, “If you were… anyone else, I would probably tell you I’m sorry. And maybe I will be later. After. But. I have a family. I want them to outlive what you’ve done. I have a little brother who should live to be a teenager, and big brothers who I want to be happier… I want them to grow up together, with B. So no. I’m not sorry.”

“I always thought it’d be me and him,” the Joker says, wheezes,  _breathes_ , “You’re the last one I expected.”

“I get that a lot,” he says. And he raises the gun, looks contemplative and serious and faintly clinical behind the barrel. 

The Joker’s muscles are still locked and tremble-y and his breaths are short and sharp and a little painful. He guesses Batman isn’t going to make it, this time. So he forces out a final laugh (a good one, too, in spite of his breathless, heavy chest), and says;

“ _Tell Brucie it’s been fun_.”

*

_BANG._

_*_

_“Hey, you’ve got Jason’s phone. If you’re old enough to dial, you should know what to do."_

**–beep–**

"Hey, Jason? It's– it’s me. Um. Tim. I just thought I should… I wanted to call, and. I should be gone by the time you get this.

"Look, if. If Dick or Bruce– if  _anyone_  cares, I'm– I’m okay. I knew what I was doing. Shit, this will make more sense in a few hours, okay? I just. I don’t know why I called you. Just forget it. I. Goodbye, Jace. And thanks for everything.”


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And Tim just stops, a little way away from the car. “Hi.”_
> 
> _“Hey,” Jason returns, like he didn’t drive for a couple days to get here. Like he’s just passing through._
> 
>  
> 
> Where Tim's past catches up to him, but mostly just to check in.

–

 

The motel is a run down building just off a highway in the middle of nowhere. The sign hasn’t been painted in too many years, letters peeling and sun-flaked,  _Ask ab ut Vacan ies!_ in dated cursive blue. 

He’s parked outside the gas station in his shitty brown rental, leaning on the driver door. He’s wearing a cheap pair of aviator sunglasses he’d picked up at a convenience store a few towns ago, along with his grown-up purchase of a mega bag of peanut m&ms, a giant bottle of peach iced tea, a few pre-packaged sandwiches, and a book of crossword puzzles. 

He hadn’t thought to buy a pencil.

But this should be the place.

He fumbles for a cigarette and realises he left his lighter in the car. He sighs, and puts the cigarette between his lips anyway. He has no better place to be.

It’d be easier if the kid had a phone. But then, advanced warning could lead to him bolting. And Jason doesn’t want that. Especially since he apparently didn’t know the kid as well as he thought – hell, none of them did. Do.

At least the media’s given up on it, now.  _VIGILANTE WANTED FOR JOKER’S MURDER_ can only sell so many papers when they don’t have any more news. Talk about the elephant in the room. 

… fuck it. He’ll get the damn lighter. 

He digs the keys out of his jeans pocket, and unlocks the door. (Goddamn– doesn’t even have automatic locks. What the  _hell–_ ) He’s bent and digging through the glove box when he  _knows_. 

He straightens up and shuts the car door without turning. But he needn’t have bothered. The kid isn’t looking at him anyway when he exits the tiny grocery store. He crosses the empty street cautiously, looking first right, then left, even though there’s nothing moving in the whole damn place. He’s wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, half-tucked in over a too-big tshirt. His chucks are scuffed and dirty, hair loose and a lot shorter than Jason remembers. 

He’s wondering what he’ll say, what his opening line’ll be, with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth by a beat-up car full of junk food wrappers in this end-of-the-earth town. But he doesn’t have to wonder, because Tim’s feet stutter in his walk. Barely. But enough.

His eyes are dark and curious, narrowed in the glare of the sun. He doesn’t look surprised, now. He doesn’t look anything, really. Except young. And alone.

He’s holding a small grocery bag, one of the semi-transparent plastic ones. Two apples, a couple power bars, a small carton of milk, one of those single-serve muesli cups, and a pack of gum. And Tim just stops, a little way away from the car. Fidgets, says, “Hi.”

“Hey,” Jason returns, like he didn’t drive for a couple days to get here. Like he’s just passing through.

“I was just,” the babybird says awkwardly, half-pointing to the motel.

And Jason says, “You’ve got time for lunch, right?" 

_*_

Tim waits around while he smokes his damn cigarette, and doesn’t even bitch at him. Just stands there, upwind of the smoke, and waits. Shifting the grocery bag between his hands.

They wind up, of course, at the town’s truck-stop diner ("Spoiled for choice, I know,” Tim had mumbled ironically, because it’s the only thing resembling a restaurant in miles), squeezing into a red vinyl booth that’s well past its prime, picking up their plastic-coated menus.

“ ‘lo again, doll,” says the waitress, a 50-something with peroxide hair and too-bright lipstick. She says, “Thought maybe you’d left.”

“Hi,” Tim says, pink-flushed, and, “No, not yet.”

“You even brought a friend,” she says, looking Jason up and down. Then, apparently satisfied, she says, “What can I getcher, sweetheart?”

“Strawberry shake please,” Jason says. “Your lunch menu open yet?”

“Sure is.”

“Chicken club then, and fries with gravy. A  _lot_ of gravy.”

Tim, the priss, raises an eyebrow at him. (Excuse him, Jason’s been living off vending machines for days.) Then he says, “Just a salad for me, thanks–”

“He’ll also take a diet Zesti. Grape, if you have it. And we’re gonna split a side of onion rings.”

“You got it, darlin’,” she says, marking it down and walking away.

And then there’s silence.

Tim twists a napkin between his fingers. “I didn’t expect to see you. I mean– I didn’t expect  _anyone_ , but just especially not you.”

Jason shrugs, leaning back against the seat. “I didn’t really expect to see you, either. By the time I tracked you, I figured it’d be too late.”

There’s an international airport only a day and a bit from here. It’s why the kid chose it, after all. And there are few better ways to stay off the grid. Interstate buses, hitchhiking. Nothing you need ID or a credit card for.

“I wasn’t planning to stay so long,” he says. His hair, Jason notices, is untidy, a little shorter on one side. He wonders if Tim knows. He opens his mouth to continue– 

And their waitress comes back with the drinks and onion rings, says “Shouldn’t be a moment on the food, kids.”

Jason slurps obnoxiously at his shake while Tim fiddles at a straw for his soda. Then he crunches down on a giant onion ring, tells him “If you don’t eat at least some of these, I’m gonna be pissed.”

Tim’s eyes flick up to his face, back to the shredded napkin on the table. He carefully takes an onion ring (the smallest one, of course) between his finger and thumb. Then, thoughtfully, he takes a bite. Jason smiles.

“How… how is everyone?” Tim asks, after a moment. Taking another from the basket.

“Okay,” Jason shrugs. “The demon brat broke his arm, so he’s bitching and whining. He mostly just lies around the Manor and sulks.”

“Oh yeah?”

“It was an accident in the gym at his school, if you’d believe that,” Jason says, around his straw. “Some faulty equipment and an asshole kid, apparently. Other than Damian, I mean. He’s especially pissed because it wasn’t even a  _heroic_ injury.”

Tim nods, but doesn’t lift his eyes from the table. 

“Everyone else is pretty good too,” he continues. “Dick’s all moony, but that’s no surprise. Alfred’s a total badass, like always." 

Tim nods again. Chewing absently at another onion ring. Then the waitress brings the rest of their food, so conversation slows while Jason makes noises of appreciation at his gravy-drowned plate. 

The babybird just eats his salad, mouth twitching whenever Jason drops onion rings or gravy-soaked fries onto his plate. But he eats them, which Jason takes as a win.

And Jason says, mouth full, "Jim Gordon asked B about you. If you were okay.”

He coughs a little, swallows. “What’d B say?”

“The truth. That you left.” He says, carefully, “He shut down the conversation pretty quickly after that." 

"I bet he did.”

And they fall silent again after that. There’s no better conversation killer than Bruce-goddamn-Wayne. 

But Jason has to know. “Why did you call  _me_?”

The kid’s silent for so long that Jason wonders if he heard. He’s picking at his salad, mopping up some dressing with a stray piece of rocket. Occasionally fidgeting with the straw in his glass. Then, “I don’t know. You seemed like my best option.”

He goes to speak but thinks better of it, shovelling in a mammoth bite and shaking his head. Then, swallowing with difficulty, he says “I was sure you’d be gone by the time I got here.”

Tim puts his fork down and meets Jason’s gaze for the first time. He says, “I need a new ID. Obviously. So I’ve got just about everything set up, a whole backstory and new identity, some funds in a dummy account to get me set up someplace new. The whole shebang. And you know the really stupid part?”

Jason shakes his head once. Not sure what to expect.

And Tim says, “I can’t decide on my new name. All that work and effort and planning, and I can’t pick a new goddamn name.”

Jason– doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s casting around for something, anything helpful or reassuring or funny, when Tim says;

“I can make the big decisions. The really important calls, the life-changing ones. But for weeks now I’ve been stuck in this shithole town because I can’t come up with a name to stick on my new passport.”

And Tim puts a hand over his eyes, mouth drawn down at the corners. His posture is heavy and stiff, and briefly, Jason’s worried he’s starting to cry. But he nudges Tim’s foot with his own and waits for him to catch his breath, to straighten his shoulders and meet Jason’s gaze again. His eyes are clear and dry, mouth crooked in something not a smile and not a frown.

They quiet down for a little while after that, until Jason brings up a phone call from Cass. From there that gets them talking about Steph (“she’s crazy busy with school” is all Jason had said, not bringing up how she’d cried for days after she’d heard), and then Babs (still awesome, definitely on Tim’s side), which gets them talking about Damian and how he’d managed to get Babs involved in a fight between him and Steph, and how it was eventually Alfred that got everyone to make up. It’s a good story, one that has Tim laughing along, but he grows serious again towards the end.

Probably wondering if he’ll ever see any of them again. 

Jason’s wondering, too.

And Tim says, sudden, “Are things… better? Between you and B?”

“A little,” he says eventually. But that’s not right. He clarifies, “Some days it’s much better. Other days it’s worse. But it’s easier sometimes.”

The babybird just nods again, looking at his mostly-cleared plate.

Carefully, eyes downcast, Jason adds, “B and Dickie never talk about it. I think he agrees with you, you know? But he never wants to fight with B. Especially not now.”

Now they’re a smaller family than before.

Tim’s eyes flick up to his face, guiltily, then back down.

“You boys done here?”

Tim jumps, startled. Starts to pile his shredded strips of napkin onto his plate without meeting the waitress’ gaze. She loads their empty dishes onto a tray.

“Yeah, thanks. It was delicious,” Jason says, prodding Tim’s ankle with his boot again. He asks the woman, “You do dessert, right?”

“We sure do.”

Jason orders himself a slice of pie (pecan, apparently award-winning), and, against Tim’s protests, orders  _him_ a slice of vanilla blueberry cheesecake. The waitress is laughing a little when she walks away, and Tim’s face is faintly pink.

“We can’t  _all_ eat like you,” he says.

Jason raises an eyebrow pointedly at the grocery bag beside Tim in the booth, says “I think you can use a day of real food, Babybird.”

The dessert conversation is a little more pleasant, and Tim doesn’t mind when Jason switches their plates halfway without asking. He talks through mouthfuls of blueberries, jokes and stories and anecdotes, and Tim talks too (admittedly through slightly smaller mouthfuls), laughs in the right places. 

They linger over their empty plates, half-listening to the conversation between the waitress and a couple truckers. But when they leave (and they eventually do), Jason tosses down a pile of bills, enough to cover their food and a generous tip. He waves off Tim’s arguments, says “Gimme some credit. I earned this fair'n square, would you believe it?”

Smiling, raising a hand in farewell to their waitress, Tim says “Where’re you working these days?”

“Mechanic in downtown Gotham,” he says, offhand, but Tim’s smiling like he knows how much it means. “It’s a kind of cool place, actually. And my boss is almost never an asshole.”

And Jason doesn’t notice that Tim’s fallen behind until they’re back out in the dusty sunlight, until Tim catches Jason by the sleeve. He turns, eyeing Tim’s serious blue gaze, his not-quite frown.

“I don’t regret it.”

There’s silence for a long moment. The boy’s hand is still heavy on Jason’s sleeve. He looks painfully young.

And it takes a long time– longer than it should– for Jason to wrap a hand around his wrist and tug him forward, tuck him firmly into his arms and  _squeeze_. Tim’s short enough that his badly-cut hair tickles Jason’s chin.

He’s stiff and uncomfortable and surprised for a full minute, but he eventually heaves out a sigh and relaxes, arms coming up to return the hug. The shopping bag is half-crushed, plastic crinkled and awkward between them. But neither makes a move to let go.

And Jason presses a very careful kiss to the top of Tim’s head, and wishes he had more practice at being a good person.

When they  _do_  pull back, some time later, Jason holds Tim at arm’s length and surveys him shrewdly. He says, “I dunno, Baby b. You kind of look like a William.”

**-END-**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also on [tumblr.](http://incogneat-oh.tumblr.com/post/66372364165/exit-wounds-part-12#_=_)


End file.
